Sleepless Travels Reloaded

Well! So I’ve finally found my non-chewable vitamin c, namely Nature’s Own 1000mg vitamin c + rosehips. 50 tablets for ~A$13. Kind of expensive for vitamins, But considering I’m saving $300, I think I have change to spare.

1000 mg is A LOT of vitamin c. Normally I’d only take 500 mg max a day. I don’t know what the rosehips are for though. Probably something to do with helping a cold along. Meh.

This is a continuation of my first skin experiment.

Preparation
I had a shower first and use the “simple” branded face wash. After that I used the sample pack of Coogi’s Platinum [EX] Exclusion Corneous Peeling Gel that I got from Seoul (they were giving out free packs of them. Whoo). The instructions were all in Korean, and by then I had already forgotten Rob’s translated instructions (well that was nearly a year ago), so I had to google it. It’s very hard to find anything on the brand in English, but luckily I stumbled upon an English skincare forum, where one user describes how to use it! Yes, only ONE useful English reference…ahhh so happy I got the instructions though. Viva google!

Here was what the forum user said. And I quote this not that anyone cares, but I know I will forget the instructions again and if I copy it here I can easily search for the instructions again XD.

One of my favourites is Coogi platinum exclusion conrneous peeling gel .. it is indeed a treatment with sea weed extract and keratin (yes, a peeling gel) .. you just put it on your cleansed face for one minute, after that, you massage for about 3 minutes, as you do so, you can actually “peel” off something from your face!! (guess some dead skin, debris cells, etc).. I like that a lot, it’s very effective, your skin glows after the treatment, unlike the regular exfoliation, it also deep cleanse your skin, like that a lot .. I hope you mom will discover sth wonderful for her skin too ~~

Anyway, this peeling gel is really quite interesting. Lots of gunk comes out, but who knows how much of it is the gel itself?

I can’t really say how effective the gel was though, because I tried out my vitamin c cream after, and who knows which one was the cause?

The reason why I wanted to use this coogi stuff though was because I wanted nice clean skin so that vitamin c would have max absorption ability.

After the coogi thingo I swiped some toner over skin. It stung though, because the skin was already a bit raw after the coogi thingi!

Method
Anyway, I go through the same routine again, I cut the tablet in half, and eat 500 mg of vitamin c because I don’t want the mixture to be too concentrated/don’t want to have to put in too much moisturising lotion, resulting in too much mixture, resulting in me having to put it in the fridge and then being pretty much useless the next day because the vitamin c would have broken down by then.

So I crush up 500 mg of vitamin c in a mortar and pestle, and spoon it into a ceramic mixing dish. I mix in abot 5 ml of Oil of Olay moisturising lotion with a mini cheese knife. At this stage the pale pink moisturising lotion takes on a grittier look. At least it’s not as bright orange as before =_=

After which I slather some on my face.

Results

1. It was chalky
Somehow, the powdered vitamin c didn’t dissolve well in the moisturising lotion like the chewable ones did. It was definitely a powder, so it wasn’t because I didn’t mash it up enough. Ascorbic acid should be able to dissolve in water-based solutions too, as it isn’t a particularly big molecule. I mean, if it was that big how would it be able to penetrate the skin’s upper layer and into the inner layers to work its magic mojo like La Prarie and all the other skincare companies claim the vitamin c is doing? I can only assume there was other weird fillers (and…maybe the rosehips?) that made a lot of the tablet un-dissolvable.

When I spread the mixture over my face, you can still feel gritty/powdery bits that just won’t rub into the skin. After the lotion dries off, a chalky residue is also left on the skin, making it look like someone swiped baby powder all over your skin. It’s not good, as one of my aims was to be able to wear the mixture as a moisturising lotion even during the day.

I think the vitamin c itself dissolved into the lotion though, because if it stayed in chunks and didn’t do anything, why was it the case that…

2. It STUNG.
I don’t know if it was the coogi pre-treatment, or the toner (unlikely) or because the concentration of vitamin c was so high. As I’ve mentioned before, vitamin c is an acid after all.

It wasn’t stinging all over my face though, just probably the more sensitive parts like acne spots, and around the nose, and basically anything that stung when I had put the toner on.

I tried dabbing on the lotion onto a particularly dark acne scar, but the stinging, which by then wasn’t that bad, got me worried about the effects of leaving the stuff on my face overnight. So I decided to wash the whole lot off, after which I used Clinique’s moisturizing gel to soothe the skin.

3. Actually it wasn’t so bad after all
Again, I don’t know if it was the coogi or the vitamin c intensive treatment, but after all that my skin is remarkably smooth!

I think what happened with the vitamin c was that it started to peel away the dead skin cells and clogged up oil on the surface of my skin (and because that process had already been started with coogi, the result may have been more effective or too strong, thus the stinging sensation). So in effect I’ve had two peels tonight, revealing more youthful, radiant and healthy skin underneath.

/advertisement voiceover.

Conclusion
I feel that this experiment should be repeated again, but definitely without doing the coogi thingi.
I can’t be satisfied how much of the stinging/smoothening effect can be attributed to the vitamin c treatment.

I have a feeling the stinging may still recur, so I may not even be able to use this mixture as a night treatment.

Further steps to take
As it stands though, it may make a very good intensive treatment thingy. The stuff that you put on for a couple of minutes then wash off…

I may be able to use the mixture as just a night treatment (can’t wear it during day though as it’s too chalky - see above) though if I decrease the amount of tablet powder I put in.

However, my goal is to prove that I can make an equivalent lotion to the La Prarie one (see first experiment), so I may have to try out another form of vitamin c tablet.

While at my local Woolie’s today, I also spotted a bottle of Nature’s Own Sodium Ascorbate. This is a non-acidic form of vitamin c, so it may help with the stinging issues as outlined above. This however means it can’t be used as an intensive peeling treatment, which is not a big issue as it is not the goal of this experiment. Who knows how chalky the mixture may turn out though.

Another form of non-chewable vitamin c I spotted the other day was a vitamin c and zinc combination as noted previously. That is also a candidate.

I wonder how many bottles of vitamin c I’m going to accumulate in pursuit of this experiment =_=